New Mormon Titles (including Brigham Young bio)

In addition to the items listed below, we ran into Richard Bushman and Michael Quinn at Sunstone and they were nice enough to sign copies of their books of which we have a limited number available. Please let us know if you would be interested.

NEW MORMON BOOKS

A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church, Vol. 3, 1853-1857

by Peter Crawley. Religious Studies Center, 2012. 467 pp. Hardback. Reg. $54.95, SALE $49.99. The final volume in this meticulously researched trilogy brings the bibliography up to 1857. Crawley, widely respected as one of the foremost experts in Mormon publishing history, gives full bibliographic detail for each title including size, page count, publisher and even institutional holdings. The intricate history of the publication of each title (book, pamphlet, circular, etc.) is accompanied by contextual history, biographical information on authors and variant bindings/editions. Also included is an addendum of fifteen entries that came to light after the publication of the first two volumes. Though it is certainly of great value to collectors, Descriptive Bibliography is, in a sense, a history of Mormonism as seen through the lens of publishing. Crawley’s herculean effort is the culmination of several decades of research and is an indispensable part of any serious Mormon studies library. Larry Draper, Curator of Special Collections at BYU’s Harold B. Lee Library states, “A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church is, to put it simply, the best available source on early Mormon printing and publishing.”

Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet

by John G. Turner. Harvard University Press, 2012. 512 pp. Hardback. Reg. $35.00, SALE $31.50. Brigham Young was a rough-hewn craftsman from New York whose impoverished and obscure life was electrified by the Mormon faith. He trudged around the United States and England to gain converts for Mormonism, spoke in spiritual tongues, married more than fifty women, and eventually transformed a barren desert into his vision of the Kingdom of God. While previous accounts of his life have been distorted by hagiography or polemical exposé, John Turner provides a fully realized portrait of a colossal figure in American religion, politics, and westward expansion. After the 1844 murder of Mormon founder Joseph Smith, Young gathered those Latter-day Saints who would follow him and led them over the Rocky Mountains. In Utah, he styled himself after the patriarchs, judges, and prophets of ancient Israel. As charismatic as he was autocratic, he was viewed by his followers as an indispensable protector and by his opponents as a theocratic, treasonous heretic. Under his fiery tutelage, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints defended plural marriage, restricted the place of African Americans within the church, fought the U.S. Army in 1857, and obstructed federal efforts to prosecute perpetrators of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. At the same time, Young’s tenacity and faith brought tens of thousands of Mormons to the American West, imbued their everyday lives with sacred purpose, and sustained his church against adversity. Turner reveals the complexity of this spiritual prophet, whose commitment made a deep imprint on his church and the American Mountain West. Turner’s treatment of the complex Brigham Young is unsentimental, cogent, critical, and fair. It takes its place alongside Leonard Arrington’s magisterial American Moses as the essential, mutually challenging portraits of one of America’s greatest colonizers and religious figures. –Philip L. Barlow, Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University. Signed. Click here for review.

Mormonism at the Crossroads of Philosophy and Theology: Essays in Honor of David L. Paulsen

edited by Jacob Baker. Greg Kofford, 2012. 422 pp. Paperback. $31.95. Recently retired after nearly 40 years of teaching and mentoring, David Paulsen has produced an imposing catalog of influential books and articles on Mormon teachings. More significant than his impressive scholarly oeuvre, however, has been his personal influence on generations of students, many of whom he inspired to become teachers and mentors themselves, and contributors to an increasingly interesting and relevant religious conversation. In addition, as one of the first serious LDS interlocutors with Orthodox Christian scholars, Paulsen has established professional and personal relationships with a wide array of non-LDS academics engaged in a serious and respectful dialogue regarding Mormonism and Christianity. This volume is a collection of essays representative of Paulsen’s wide-ranging professional and personal influence, collected in honor of his many achievements and published on the occasion of his retirement.

Religion and Public Life in the Mountain West: Sacred Landscapes in Transition

edited by Jan Shipps and Mark Silk. Altamira Press, 2004. Cloth. Reg. $65.00, SALE $23.95. This volume contains five essays that present not only demographics but also analyses and overviews that highlight the religious uniqueness of the Mountain West and invite comparisons with other regions of America. A chapter on demographics by Walter Nugent describing the Mountain West as an “oasis culture” is complemented by Ferenc Szasz’s essay on the role of religion in creating a social infrastructure in the region. A wise editorial decision then breaks the region into three sub regions that are examined in the remaining essays. Randi Walker discusses Catholicism in Arizona and New Mexico, alerting readers to some unexpected ways that religion finds expression in public life. In a carefully nuanced essay, Kathleen Flake argues that theological uniqueness and the recollection of persecution in the past almost insure the continued tension between the Latter Day Saints and other religious groups in the region. The interesting aspects of Philip Deloria’s essay include his comparison of the religious ambiance of Boulder with Colorado Springs, and his treatment of religion among Native Americans. The introduction and conclusion by Jan Shipps sound high notes at the beginning and end of the collection.

The Street-Legal Version of Mormon’s Book

by Michael Hicks. Tame Olive Press, 2012. 487 pp. Paperback. Reg. $17.25, SALE $15.00. From the Introduction: “Why ‘street-legal’? That’s a term we use for souped-up cars—streamlined and powerfully efficient but also decorative, with decals, pin striping, and tricked-out doodads—that still can be ridden in normal lanes of traffic. They’re not cars meant for everyday errands, to be sure. Offroad is their normal habitat. But the only thing they usually lack to be ‘normal’ is a better muffler. This paraphrase of the Book of Mormon is like that. I’ve streamlined a lot of passages, put them in terse, up-to-date vernacular, thinking that’s what one would have done if one were scratching the book out on metal plates. I’ve tried to muscle up the prose. But I’ve also added lots of linguistic decals: digressions, snippets of commentary, queries, and even humor, which the original editor, Mormon, apparently cut.” Click here for review.

History of the Saints: Gathering to the West, Season One (DVD).

Covenant, 2011. DVD set. $39.95. From the same team who worked on the Joseph Smith Papers TV Series comes “History of the Saints,” an ongoing television documentary series focused on the epic history of the Latter-day Saints. The first season commences with the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, and follows the Saints across the plains to Utah. Subsequent seasons discuss expansion and colonization of the West, development of Utah and more. 35 episodes on 9 DVDs, approx 13 hrs.

Habits of Being: Mormon Women’s Material Culture

edited by Elizabeth Pinborough. Exponent II, 2012. 113 pp. Paperback. $19.99. A variety of Mormon women write about objects they have inherited from their ancestresses in this collection of essays and poetry. Humorous and heart-breaking, this collection includes works by Linda Hoffman Kimball, Jana Riess, Margaret Toscano, and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and features full-color illustrations.

A Short Stay in Hell

by Steven Peck. Strange Violin Editions, 2012. 108 pp. Paperback. $11.95. An ordinary family man, geologist, and Mormon, Soren Johansson has always believed he’ll be reunited with his loved ones in an eternal hereafter. Then, he dies. Soren wakes to find himself cast by a God he has never heard of into a Hell whose dimensions he can barely grasp: a vast library he can only escape from by finding the book that contains the story of his life. In this haunting existential novella, author, philosopher, and ecologist Steven L. Peck explores a subversive vision of eternity, taking the reader on a journey through the afterlife of a world where everything everyone believed in turns out to be wrong.

Fire in the Pasture: Twenty-First Century Mormon Poets

edited by Tyler Chadwick. Peculiar Pages, 2011. 522 pp. Paperback. $27.99. Fire in the Pasture is the first serious new collection of Mormon poets since the Eugene England and Dennis M. Clark-edited Harvest in 1989. That work’s excellence has been rightly lauded, and it will never lose its place in Mormon letters. Yet over twenty years have passed, and it is now time for a new volume of poetry to take its place in the canon. Focusing on the 21st-century work of poets known and new, Fire in the Pasture will make an enormous contribution to the Mormon literary scene. Includes contributions from Joanna Brooks, Alex Caldiero, Michael Hicks, Steven Peck and Paul Swenson.

The Fourth Wife: Polygamy, Love & Revolution

by Carolyn O’Bagy Davis. Rio Nuevo, 2011. 206 pp. Paperback. $14.95. Quietly heroic and deeply devout, Julia Abegg Call was the fourth wife in a polygamous marriage to Anson Bowen Call, Mormon bishop of Colonia Dublan in revolutionary-era Mexico. Carolyn Davis offers an intimate look into a polygamous family that struggled to stay together amidst political turmoil in Mexico and the growing intolerance toward polygamy in the United States. Julia became the mother of twelve children and confronted danger, poverty, prejudice, and personal tragedy as the Call family found themselves in the middle of warring parties during the Mexican Revolution, crossing paths with both Pancho Villa and General Pershing.

NEW MORMON BOOKS IN PAPERBACK

Excavating Mormon Pasts: The New Historiography of the Last Half Century

edited by Steven Harper, Robin Jensen and Robert Woodford. Reg. $99.99, SALE $39.99. Includes two ledgers used to collect the revelations, the first of which (“Revelation Book 1” or “Book of Commandments and Revelations”) was unknown to scholars until very recently. This volume contains scans of the original holographs as well as transcriptions color-coded by scribal handwriting.

Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations & Translations, Vol. 1

edited by Steven Harper, Robin Jensen and Robert Woodford. Reg. $79.99, SALE $49.99. This volume is a smaller, “library” version of the above and includes only the transcriptions, not the scans of the originals.

edited by Richard Turley, Jr., Robin Jensen and Riley Lorimer. Reg. $69.99, SALE $39.99. Reproduced with scans here are The Book of Commandments, 1835 D&C and additions to the 1844 D&C; transcriptions of revelations published in The Evening and Morning Star and proposed text of the rest of The Book of Commandments.

Joseph Smith Papers, Journals, Vol. 2

edited by Richard Lloyd Anderson, Andrew Hedges and Alex Smith. Reg. $54.95, SALE $43.99. This second of three Journals volumes includes the journal portion of the Book of the Law of the Lord and the first two of four memorandum books kept by Willard Richards covering 1841 to 1843.